The missing ingredient in Bangladesh's semiconductor ambition
Bangladesh has built a talent pipeline. What it needs now is a system that helps local firms turn chip designs into tested products and learn from each attempt
Semiconductors have recently taken centre stage in Bangladesh's national discourse. The country now boasts more than 700 chip designers, according to the Invest Bangladesh, alongside a talent pool of over 20,000 engineering and computer science graduates entering the market every year.
Seizing on this momentum, the Bangladesh Semiconductor Industry Association has set an ambition of reaching $1 billion in revenue by 2030.
These numbers suggest that the journey has begun, although the destination of a full-fledged semiconductor ecosystem remains elusive.
The challenge is no longer just producing engineers or offering standard incentives but transforming scattered talent into a resilient institutional capability that gains value from every design, tape-out, or failure.
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The defining question is whether we can build an environment that systematically accumulates industrial knowledge. That is the missing ingredient. We have built a talent pipeline; now we need a learning pipeline.
Turning talent into capability
A semiconductor engineer can become very good at RTL design, verification or physical design without ever having to deal with physical hardware.
Yet, when a chip fails, the root cause usually lies in complex interactions between the design and the manufacturing process, packaging, thermal behaviour, electrical characteristics or test methodology. Engineers learn some of those lessons only when they see actual silicon, analyze failures and redesign the device.
That distinction matters enormously; a country can produce thousands of graduates and still fail to develop a semiconductor industry.
It risks becoming nothing more than a destination for outsourced services without developing deeper knowledge. This knowledge should allow local companies to create products, processes and intellectual property.
While design services are the most sensible place for Bangladesh to begin, as the national taskforce rightly notes, the danger lies in mistaking the "starting point" for the "ultimate destination".
The missing loop
The semiconductor industry is unusually dependent on repeated cycles of learning. When a new chip is developed, engineers simulate, verify, and complete the layout before sending it to fabrication. Once physical silicon returns, testing reveals what works and what fails.
Investigating these failures, modifying the design, and running subsequent fabrication cycles builds unique knowledge. This collective experience becomes a core asset, showing engineers where simulation diverges from reality and teaching companies which processes really hold up. Capability is therefore accumulated experience, not just a headcount of trained individuals.
Taiwan is a clear example of this. Its chip industry did not appear overnight. In the 1970s, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) acquired foreign technology, trained engineers overseas, and established a demonstration factory to gain hands-on experience. ITRI transferred this operational knowledge into commercial entities, eventually spinning out UMC and transferring a functioning fab, to seed TSMC in 1987.
The essential takeaway for Bangladesh is not Taiwan's eventual scale, but its method: knowledge entered the country, was applied in an operating environment, improved through practice, and was then absorbed by commercial enterprises.
Learning without a fab
Bangladesh cannot sensibly begin by building an advanced semiconductor fabrication plant. The massive capital, specialised utility requirements, complex supplier ecosystems, and required customer base make fabrication an extraordinarily risky proposition.
Fortunately, a country does not need a local factory to create a design-to-silicon learning cycle.
Through Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) programmes, multiple design teams can share the high cost of a single fabrication run.
The next phase of national semiconductor policy must move beyond a preoccupation with counting headcount, training laboratories, and investment announcements. The focus must shift to tracking learning cycles.
India, for instance, integrates MPW prototyping and post-silicon validation into its Design Linked Incentive program. This model recognises that a design company needs more than software and engineers; it needs an affordable pathway from design to real silicon and ultimately to validation.
This is a critical distinction for Bangladesh.
Measuring outcomes through milestones
The National Semiconductor Taskforce has recommended industry-standard training laboratories, shared cleanrooms, certification programmes, and a dedicated semiconductor fund.
These are sensible steps. To prevent a superficial box-checking exercise measured by infrastructure or trainee headcounts, laboratories must be judged strictly by output: the number of designs fabricated, tested, analysed for localised failure, and successfully modified for a second run to reach a customer. These are the indicators of industrial capability.
This outcome-based approach should also reshape how public money is utilised.
A startup might receive initial grants for its first prototype layout, a second tier of funding after a successful tape-out and verification, and a final injection of capital upon demonstrating a second-generation design or securing a client.
In this model, the state pays progressively for verifiable milestones rather than mere corporate presence.
Connecting academia to industry
A university that teaches VLSI design without providing a meaningful route to fabricated silicon offers a theoretical knowledge leaving the learning cycle incomplete. Hence, academic institutions, local design firms, and shared laboratories must establish a mechanism that moves promising designs from the classroom into fabrication and testing.
Singapore offers a useful example of this industry-academia connection. Its semiconductor ecosystem deeply integrates universities, research institutes, and global companies, allowing industrial needs to shape local training and research priorities through structured partnerships.
While replicating Singapore's exact scale is unrealistic, the underlying lesson is universal.
Negotiating for knowledge
Bangladesh undeniably needs multinational semiconductor companies, but the objective must extend far beyond attracting their payrolls that allows local engineers to learn by working alongside them.
Malaysia offers a clear lesson of semiconductor industry growth over decades around multinational manufacturing, assembly and testing. Today, it faces the challenging task of shifting gears to move up the value chain into intellectual property and design. Its trajectory highlights both the massive opportunity and the difficulty of upgrading an ecosystem once it has established routine external operations.
If a multinational establishes a design centre in Bangladesh, we must negotiate for structuring partnerships that allow local universities to participate in joint research, enable domestic suppliers to meet procurement needs, and permit experienced talent to eventually transition into local firms. None of this should be forced through rigid, unrealistic localisation rules; instead, it must be negotiated through commercially viable partnerships.
Redefining success
There is an uncomfortable reality that Bangladesh's industrial policy rarely addresses: in a deep-tech sector, individual failure is inevitable. Certain chip designs will not work, some startups will run out of capital, and multiple prototypes will never see commercial use. In a technology-driven industry, this is normal. Real policy failure is not the setback itself, but spending public resources without capturing the technical insights needed to improve future outcomes.
This paradigm shift forces a rethink of Bangladesh's $1 billion semiconductor export target.
While a useful long-term aspiration, a distant revenue figure cannot measure whether industrial foundations are being built correctly. Instead, national metrics should track actionable, intermediate indicators.
We must evaluate the number of Bangladeshi companies completing a full design-to-silicon cycle, the proportion advancing past their first tape-out, and the volume of local engineers gaining hands-on post-silicon experience rather than merely working with design tools.
True capability is proven when locally developed IP blocks are integrated into commercial products, and when domestic firms clear the technical qualification of international buyers to turn a first project into repeat business.
The objective of a national strategy cannot be to eliminate risk. Rather, it must build a mechanism ensuring that the technical lessons learned from one generation improve the next.
Counting learning cycles
Bangladesh does not need to become Taiwan, nor does it need to manufacture the world's most advanced processors. Attempting to build every segment of the global value chain at once is a strategic mistake.
Instead, the nation must secure a few specialised niches where knowledge can accumulate rapidly, making local companies difficult to replace. That might begin with design and verification, or extend into test engineering, semiconductor IP, reliability and selected backend capabilities.
However, choosing specific segments should follow the creation of a functional learning system, not before. The critical mistake would be to confuse 'participation' with 'industrialization'.
The next phase of national semiconductor policy must move beyond a preoccupation with counting headcount, training laboratories, and investment announcements. The focus must shift to tracking learning cycles.
Bangladesh lacks neither ambition nor raw talent. The missing link is a mechanism ensuring that the technical lessons mastered by one generation improve the next. Without this loop, the country will merely sustain transient back-office services.
By constructing it, Bangladesh can establish a resilient industry whose capabilities accumulate within its borders, rather than resetting to zero every time a new project arrives.
Sabbir Ahmad, a tech executive with global experience in digital connectivity, sustainable infrastructure and energy, now shaping Bangladesh's semiconductor landscape as the CEO of Silicon Array Ltd. Email: sabbir@ieee.org.
